Lillard will almost certainly win the ROY, and if he did not I would be outraged. He has been the starting PG of a team that competed pretty well for the better part of the season, played heavy minutes and showed clutchness that no normal rookie should have. THAT SAID: he is not Jesus Christ Almighty. He dribbles too much. His defense is poor. His PG skills are just average. He has been badly exposed by good-but-non-All Star PGs like Mike Conley. If he has been in the top ten in PER for PGs this season then it's news to me. (Not that I think PER is all that, but if you're not a great defender, you better have a good PER going for you.) Perhaps the best thing about him, and that may drive him to be greater than he currently is, is his attitude. He doesn't get too high or too low and he genuinely seems to have a drive to improve. But let's not assume that he automatically will. ROYs from Damon Stoudamire to Tyreke Evans have looked a lot worse after a promising rookie season.
I'll say to the Dame haters what I've said to the LA haters There are about 25 or 26 teams that would love to have LA as their starting PF......... I can safely say that their are about 21 teams that would love to have Dame as their starting PG.....not bad for a rookie. But you can go ahead and complain about him if it makes you feel better.
For a rookie Dame has been nothing short of amazing. Every player has his strengths and weaknesses and I feel Dame's weaknesses are very manageable and he has the drive and talent to improve on them. I think about Dame vs BRoy a lot for obvious reasons and after losing BRoy it felt like we would never recover, but Dame has a very big light at the end of the tunnel. I think Dame is already on course to be better than BRoy was or was projected to be. Main area I would like to see Dame improve are defense and game winning clutch shots, those were big strengths of BRoy and will likely come with experience.
I was just about to give you props on a quality post, than I realized how few posts you have! #rookie
Lol, thanks I think. Giving your ribbing I would like to point out my rep powever vs post count. I gain 1 rep power per 71.6 posts. So far you are on a 1 rep power per 3754.6 post...... thats a rate of 52.4 times the infamous HCP All-Star.
Don't care all about that but another thing about his post, BRoy wasn't a huge defensive guy. Certainly better then Dame at it (remember the block on Melo?) but Roy seemed to save himself on D until the final minutes of games.
A few RoYs have had drops in their production following their 1st year, but if you look at the last 10 years of RoYs and their respective rookie class peers then it becomes pretty obvious that more often than not whomever wins the RoY continues to be the best player from their rookie class well into their career. Basically the there are 3 classes of guys, one are the guys that are pretty clearly still the best from their class, one are guys that were the best for a while but were derailed by injuries, and the last group are the guys that really did drop in the standings after a year or two of high level production. Group 1: Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant, Lebron James, Chris Paul, Blake Griffin(might be dropping but still the best right now) Group 2: Brandon Roy, Derrick Rose (might comeback and move back to Group 1), and Amare Stoudamire to an extent although he was the best from 2002 for a long enough time he might still be the best guy from that class even with all the recent injuries. Group 3: Tyreke Evans, Emeka Okafor So better odds than not that the RoY continues to be regarded as the best player from his rookie class well into their career, I'll take that for Dame.
I agree, but its not uncommon for heavy used all star offensive players to save their energy for offense and then turn on the D when it counted. BRoy was a fantastic D player when needed, remember the BRoy vs Joe Johnson game?
Hey, I understand and with what we know about Roy now? It was a great decision as he could have been hurt even sooner (although maybe if it was before his contract then that would have helped us..). Still, it means he could do it but the best defenders show it (almost) all the time.
True but that usually takes some time to develop. Kobe and Jordan didnt do it till late 20's, I think BRoy could have been up there as an all defensive player also given time and desire, but sadly thats all for speculation now.
Gary Payton is going to work with Dame this summer... unless Dame suddenly grows a giant attitude problem, he'll improve defensively.
I am of the mind that if you shoot at something enough, you'll kill it! QUANTITY not quality is my motto! Ya, I don't know about that rep power thing.......but I've had 1,309 people throw me rep points (whatever that means) FAMS. Now I won't reply to your reply til you have surpassed 1,000 posts. Now go away
Historically one of the best rookie seasons ever and on track to be the best Blazer point guard ever. I am going to wait a few seasons before complaining about imperfections in his game. On another note, I take DL at the point every day over Jesus Christ.
You are right. Jesus could not shoot from distance, and didn't have the handles or court vision. Helluva crossover though....
